Working children and young people
A positive stigma for child labor?
A positive stigma model on child labour in Guatemala
Authors:
M. Najeeb Shafiq; H.A. Patrinos
Publisher:
Education Section, Human Development Department, World Bank, 2008
Using data from Guatemala, this study introduces a model that assumes a positive stigma (or norm) toward child labour that is common in some developing countries. The analysis uses two instruments for measuring stigma: a child’s indigenous background and the household head’s childhood work experience.
A positive stigma could approve of child labour, or at least it could approve of select forms of work for child labour. Indeed, households might take pride in work in a household business or farm, especially if the child combines this work with schooling. Such a positive stigma for child labour has been identified among indigenous households in Guatemala, such that households value work not only as a tool for income, but as an activity worthwhile in its own right. This overall approach suggests that increasing schooling options or improvements in socioeconomic status may be insufficient to eliminate child labour in households with a positive stigma for child labour. Therefore, welfare programmes that provide cash payments in exchange for children’s regular attendance at school such as Mexico’s Oportunidadesm and other programmes in Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua are likely to have a modest impact on eliminating child labour.
Concluding points include:
- the lack of change in child labour among indigenous Guatemalans partly supports the positive stigma argument, but it may also reflect low socioeconomic status (and reliance on child labour) over time
- in terms of the predicted probabilities of engaging in the various child activities by degree of stigma towards child labour, the paper denotes strong positive stigma in a case where a child is both indigenous and has a household head who engaged in child labour
- a medium stigma is denoted towards child labour if a child is either indigenous or has a head who worked as child. Lastly, a weak (perhaps zero or negative) stigma is denoted towards child labour if a child is not indigenous and has a head who did not work as a child.
